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emotions

With less than 48 hours (depending on your time zone) in 2013, the web is bursting at its virtual seams with articles, essays, stories and more on how to live your best life in 2014. There are motivational quotes on Twitter, positivity photos on Instagram, and I am sure a combination of both on Facebook walls everywhere. Here is the thing; I love quotes of all kind. I, too, double tap away on inspirational images and sayings, scripture passages, and fitness triumphs. There are plenty of days when I find myself rereading encouraging words to boost me up out of a funk or to persuade me to modify my thoughts as a means to modify my mood. However, as I turn the page on this calendar year, I do not want to read one more article on how I should feel in 2014.

The bulk of this year is something I would happily send out into the void along with George Clooney in Gravity. If I had kept count (and I’m glad I did not) of the days I have cried, I am certain it is more than half of the entire year. I would love to write that it was tears of joy, but assuming you have read previous posts, clearly the tears were of the sad variety. When much of the year has been spent enduring emotional hurt, it is not only unrealistic, but also quite simplistic, to think that said person can simply flip a switch once the clock strikes 12. If it were that easy, wouldn’t we have done it sooner? I will spend the next two days feeling whatever it is I feel at the exact moment I feel it. The past twelve months were rough. I do not want to spend more time wallowing in what was, but I do want to honor my feelings. Yes, there will be confetti dancing overhead, music playing loudly and glasses clinking to toast the start of 2014, but I will still feel the push-pull of what is versus what I had hoped to be.

The trajectory for ’13 was projected to go plenty differently than where I am now. Unfortunately, broken plans and unrealized promises happened and here I am. The singular truth is that I cannot change past events. No amount of wishing, praying or hoping (all of which I have tried) will force circumstances to be other than this. My heart still hurts but admittedly, some days are better than others. As my eyes move from person to person at the stroke of midnight, I will wish he was beside me. Momentarily, I will close my eyes and imagine him there. The moment will pass and I’ll return to the here and now. I will embrace my friends, sip champagne and make that universal wish that the coming year is the best one yet.

Make New Year’s Eve and the upcoming year your own. Do what feels right to you and forget the rest.